Let’s talk about love
Posted under People I love, Photography, Uncategorized
Let’s talk about love…not romantic love because I’m too old and too married for all that.
I think we’ll stick with motherly love, altogether a much more palatable subject and very topical if you’re in the UK (since it’s Mothering Sunday here, but I think not in the US?). I was treated to breakfast in bed ‘made’ by the Megaboys: brioche (straight up, no butter, no jam), grapes and a cupcake. Strangely the cake wasn’t for me, or the grapes, and I was only allowed one brioche. But the thought was there. Later I was ‘surprised’ with a bouquet of flowers, perhaps less surprising than intended since 4 year olds are totally incapable of keeping secrets (“Mummy, we’re going to surprise you with some flowers later!”). Typically, Diggy was less enthusiastic about the whole affair and woke up grumbling, “I don’t want it to be Happy Mothers Day I want to it to be LITTLE…BOYS…..DAY”.
I’ve wittered on before about motherly love or, more specifically, the feeling of being ‘in love’ (or not) with your children. I love them so much that I sometimes feel swamped by it, for want of a better word. And just when I feel like I’m drowning in love for them, it’s sometimes tempered by the knowledge that they will grow and move away and apart from me. There’s nothing I can do though, I’m programmed to love them forever. They will take my love for granted all their lives (as is right and is the natural order of things) but, as a parent, I know I should cherish these years of this exquisite, unquestioning love for me. Soon enough they will be teenagers and will think they know everything, and me and MrSpud will be so old hat, so embarrassing. So, for now, I’ll take their sweet kisses and fervent whispers of ‘you’re my BEST mummy…the best mummy in the world’ and store them up in a quiet corner of my heart…insurance for the days when doors are slammed and ‘I HATE YOU. I WISH I’D NEVER BEEN BORN’ becomes a constant refrain.
We chewed over the topic of motherly love a little last weekend at our mini-blogcamp. Bee and I took turns to unwittingly terrify Blanca about the trials of parenthood. I have pre-schooler boys, Bee has teenage girls. That’s quite a heady mix of ‘issues’ for someone yet to embark of parenthood to take on board. “Oh don’t worry!”, said Bee reassuringly. “Little children are very, very easy to love. You don’t get handed a teenager to deal with straight off, you get a tiny helpless baby.”
Her words have buzzed around my mind all week, “little children are very easy to love”. How right she is! They might not be very easy to manage, what with all the tantrums, tears, negotiations etc etc, but they are very easy to love….because they totally ADORE you and ADMIRE you. It’s a win:win situation….you become a total slave to them and their needs and, in return, they worship the ground you walk on. They get their basic needs met and a bucket of love to boot, and you get to walk round in a bubble of joy forever because these extraordinary little people worship the ground you walk on.
“You don’t get handed a teenager right off”, those words have also been niggling at me. Mostly in a ‘THANK GOD’ kind of way of course, but also because I’m beginning to see glimpses of what it might to be like to parent a teenager. Partly through my friendship with Bee, partly because I used to be a teenager myself. Shudder. Are teenage boys are better/easier than teenage girls? Please say yes…
It being Mothering Sunday I decided it was time to get a rare shot of me with the boys. Alas this means handing over the camera to MrSpud who clearly needs to read up a bit and join my Camera Club. At least it’s vaguely in focus, but the composition? Sigh….look at all that crap in the background, and that’ AFTER a major crop by me. It’s not the lovely shot I’d hoped for, but in the spirit of Getting in the Picture I am sharing it as a reminder to all your Snappy Bloggers that YOU need to get in front of the camera too sometimes.
Happy Mothering Sunday to us all – with thanks and love to all the mothers everywhere, breeding and nurturing the future of the world. No wonder we’re knackered…
lovely to see the boys and you so happy in that shot!
happy mother’s-and-little-boys-day!
This photo made my heart beats faster…
:)
You’re such a gorgeous mother, Judith! xo
Happy mothersday to you!!!!
To hear them say: Love you, mum. I never grow tired of hearing that. Each time they get a big hug in return.
I’m still allowed even by my 10 year old. I count my blessings. For how long will it still last. I notice that the teenagertroubles aren’t far away anymore.
On one hand I look forward seeing them growing up but if I could somehow let them jump over the teenages years, I would be very, very tempted.
But the boat continues sailing and I’ll have to take the weather as it comes.
Have a lovely sunday evening.
xoxo Elizabeth
precious picture…and post.
My son is getting closer to those teenage years. I too am hoping that boy teenagers are easier to deal with. I’ll let you know when we get there.
I’m not allowed to hug or kiss him in public anymore, but I still take all the lovin’ I can get in private.
Ooh the thought of getting a teenager right off the bat is frightening. hehe… A beautiful read and i love the happy picture of you three :)
Gorgeous boys, beautiful mom (did you get a major hair cut?…cute!) Love the post. I remember reading in Time magazine an article about American Teens when Gab was a pre-teen. It said that teens are much healthier, happier and easier to get along with than is widely believed. I found that reassuring at the time, and true in the long run. I worked at a school with teens for ten years. It appeared to me that neither girls or boys were ‘easier’. Enjoy your mega boys and don’t be afraid of the future mega-teens.
I know that feeling of being swamped by your love for a child, I feel myself swamped constantly at the moment and feel so fiercely about him. The idea of school in September is hugely exciting for him but terrifying for me. I also take great delight in the Mothers Day excitement, which includes being told what I have before I have it – as if he feels the need to prepare for what’s to come.
What a sweet shot! Sounds like you had a wonfderful Mothering Day!
Too married for romance? Oh my dear, get a sitter and check into a hotel. Something really tacky with mirrors on the ceiling and a heart shaped bathtub!
Loverly post and, as always, stunning photos.
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After 4 teenage girls and with one boy at age 15, I must say that so far… boys are much easier!
A lovely picture and I so know what you mean about occasionally needing to be in the picture – I realised when I went back to work last week that I don’t have a picture of me and the girls (well not one that doesn’t have my boobs in it, so not entirely suitable for work … !)
I don’t scare so easily! :)
I like how you had to post that gorgeous photo at the beginning of the post to cancel the not-up-to-my-standards one at the bottom (which by the way, it’s still a lovely photo of you and the megaboys!)
Your post comes just in time–we just spent a very exhausting long weekend with kids driving us mad. Very challenging period :)
ahhh, so true. I’m so aware of this precious time slipping away so fast. Toby turned 3 at the weekend and it felt momentous.
You and Bertie look SO similar in this pic!
xx
I’m glad that the measuring cups make such a gorgeous picture (if nothing else). They are such a good visual metaphor for motherly love . . . which has a “nesting” quality to it after a number of years. When you start out, your love is pure — and so it theirs. Then it gets a lot more complicated . . . but takes on a lot more depth, too.
Mothering Sunday was such a downer for me. Sig was in the Middle East and left to their own devices the girls did precisely NOTHING for me. Also, the oldest daughter was completely foul to me all day long. It was very depressing. I hope B doesn’t read this; thank goodness she has already commented!
p.s. Your comments about the lack of daffs being a national disaster did make me laugh. So true!
Oh yea; I’ve heard that teenage boys ARE easier than teenage girls. But they have a tendency to be messy, smelly and uncommunicative! Enjoy these halcyon days, my dearest Spud.
“All that crap in the background is what a dear friend of mine calls ‘everdayness’ Which, I think, fits in with preschool parenting quite exactly” fwiw I didn’t have an awful lot of trouble parenting a teenage girls, and having been a teenage boy myself, er, ummm…
… now where was I?
(apolgies for misplaced punctuation – shame it can’t be edited like wot it can on flickr)